Vegetarian Curry

I'm a carnivore but usually make a Panir curry as Mrs S doesn't eat meat. TBH, I'm a fan of Panir anyway.

The saag paneer recipe from Mowgli street food is good and relatively quick to make.

I have the book (worth getting as lots of other good recipes in), but there is a copy of the recipe here that looks accurate

https://www.hokeystokey.com/mowgli-paneer-4/

If you want to avoid the paneer, I sometimes make it with cauliflower that has been pre roasted in spices/oil then add in at the stage you would add the paneer.

Madhur Jaffrey has a nice Singapore style prawn curry. Other than the prawns its veg. That with tofu as the protein perhaps?

**added to my original post instead**

Meera Sodha writes some nice books

Saag, paneer and mushroom is always a winner.

Aubergine, okra, cauliflower and broccoli all make good veggie curry ingredients as well.

Side dish of bambay aloo as well!

Chickpea and spinach. I make a big pot of it and portion it down. Wife's vego and coeliac and it's handy to just have it ready to go while I focus on slow cooking lamb or beef curries.

Chickpea and spinach

I make a fairly dry one of those, then wrap it in filo pastry and bake it for 30min or so. Usually chuck in some halloumi chunks (can't get paneer here) before wrapping, too.

Biryani? This is a bit of a faff, but delicious, there's lots of easier baked biryani recipes on line, you can ease off on the ghee or substitute a bit of ground nut around sunflower oil. Serve with a chick pea masala and raita.

https://www.cookwithmanali.com/restaurant-style-vegetable-biryani/

make it with cauliflower that has been pre roasted in spices/oil then add in at the stage you would add the paneer.

This is the way.

This is a favourite at our house. Does Dhal count as a curry? I'm not sure, but you could do just the Dhal bit as a side and use the roasted Cauliflower as a meat substitute in proper sauce.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/cheats-black-dhal

Chickpea and lentil dahl.

Lentil dahl is super easy and goes with anything plus it works as "gently warming" right through to "blow the roof of your mouth off". On the other hand it does come out as a bit of a yellowy mush so it might not be the thing to go for if looks are important.

Pretty much any decent curry recipe and swap to paneer?  The same applies to chickpeas or cauliflower.

n.b. if you've not cooked paneer before, treat it like Tofu.  Chop it into 1/2" cubes, leave it on a tea towel to dry off whilst you prep the veg and then roll it in cornflour before frying in the pan with a little oil. Putting it straight in a pan just leaves you with what you'd expect, burnt cheese in a frying pan.

For east rather than south asian curries, swap paneer and chickpeas for tofu and edamame beans.

Do you know what the person you are trying to impress likes?

I like paneer but my other half really doesn't! Things that absorb flavour as they roast / boil are good - cauliflower, potato, paneer, chickpeas, And 'earthy' veg goes well - aubergine, mushrooms. But they style is quite a personal taste thing.

A faff but if you want to impress with effort, a thali would be ace. Bit of tarka dhal (really easy), bombay aloo, aubergine (goes well in a tomato rogan-josh style reduced right down) and a cauliflower-saag masala, bread, rice, onion bhaji.

I'm happy with an Aldi jar of saag masala with cauli, mushrooms and potatoes, and a bit of cream or yoghurt thrown in at the very end tbh!

Having lived in Bradford, holidayed at homestays in Sri Lanka and being regular visitors to Birmingham we reckon we know a good curry.

As a result we rarely make one at home because it tends not to be as good as the real thing. (except when Mrs BigJohn makes a super SriLankan lentil curry with fresh curry leaves, but I've no idea how she does it, my attempts are disappointing)

But a jar of Tesco Green Thai curry paste added into cauliflower, sweet potato, mushrooms, onions, garlic and coconut milk makes a fine dish.

 a jar of Tesco Green Thai curry paste

Tip for veggies, watch the Thai curry sauces, often, but not always, contain fish oil, check the ingredients. Same goes for kimchi.

jackfruit biryani and black daal are both absolute favourites - vegan household - and these dishes are sensational.

we eat more Indian food than anything else these days. the dishoom cookbook is great, just replace all the nasty ingredients with groovy stuff!

I wish I could be bothered cooking curries but there are generally a bewildering number of ingredients, usually a little obscure too.

Much like anything Ottolenghi.

Be nice to hear about some simple ones as they're often a bit much to cobble together after work.

Meera Sodha writes some nice books

Very much this.

Also, Dishoom's Black Daal is pretty easy to replicate at home. If you've eaten it in the restaurant you'll know this is a very good thing.

Literally the best curry ever

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/21/chilli-tofu-recipe-vegan-meera-sodha

Par-boil some chopped up spuds (think about 3cm cubes). Go for about 500g.

Whilst that's happening, heat a good glug of oil in a roasting dish into which you have added a tablespoon of cumin seeds, a tablespoon of coriander seeds, a teaspoon of nigella seeds and a teaspoon each of garam masala and turmeric. Do whatever you do for roast potatoes that you like (flour, bashing, steam drying, whatever). Then roast them as you would normally, just in the highly seasoned oil. Some chopped carrots go nicely in this too.

Then cook up a fairly generic onions, ginger, garlic, chilli, ground cumin, ground coriander, curry powder, tinned tomatoes (or passata) sauce. I like to add a lot of dried fenugreek leaves, some people don't like them.

When the roasted veg is done, tip the whole lot (oil and all) into your still gently cooking sauce.

There's loads of variations you can do to this with spicing, other veg etc. But I really enjoy this basic 'recipe'.

I wish I could be bothered cooking curries but there are generally a bewildering number of ingredients, usually a little obscure too.

We have a large Indian subcontinent contingent in the office and they recommend the spice mixes you can pick up win the world food isle (Rajah etc) for most stuff.

Most (Indian) curries are the same basic mix of garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander etc  with varying amounts of  other ingredients thrown in on top. If you start with a thumb sized piece of ginger and a few big cloves of garlic grated into a pan with some ground up coriander and ginger, add an lot of onion and fry on a low heat for 15min until it's watery and soft before turning it up to give it some color.  Then add meat, veg, paneer etc that's been cooked separately (roasted in spices), and pour some stock / tomatoes / yogurt etc depending on the style of curry you want over it you'll end up with a pretty damn good curry for 4.

Go to the local curry house. Buy curry, tip in into a pan at home, hide the evidence. 🙂

If I was "out to impress" then I'd probably shoot for making several small dishes rather than one big one. Then if you serve her* something she doesn't like there's always something else. If she's anything like my other half she won't care unless there's pudding.

(* - I assume)

If you are looking for something with a bit more protein, I tend to use tofu instead of paneer served in a generic home made sauce with other veggies. I cut it into 5mm thick slices and toss it in a mixture of corn flour, garlic, cumin & ginger powder and then lightly fry it in some oil before adding it to the sauce.

Someone mentioned Mowgli above, their ginger & rhubarb dahl is nice. I've made that a few times when have a glut of rhubarb.

I also have the Dishoom cook book which has some very nice recipes, just use veggies instead of meet. The paneer kebab is particularly nice.

My most made veg curry. I like to add paneer.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/sep/24/how-to-make-the-perfect-chana-masala

This is MrsGinge's all time favourite curry to eat and ties in with some of the recommendations above (for Paneer and Mera Sodha).

https://thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/paneer-butter-masala/

We have a large Indian subcontinent contingent in the office and they recommend the spice mixes you can pick up win the world food isle (Rajah etc) for most stuff.

The Tandoori Masala is particularly good. Lob some cubed super firm tofu and/or aubergine in a bit of that and some lemon juice, leave to marinate for a bit, then fry (or air fry). Add to a base curry sauce of your choice, which could just be simply onions, garlic, tomatoes and spices.

I highly recommend the Prashad cookbook by Kaushy Patel. Kaushy used to run a vegetarian restaurant in Bradford, now run by one of her sons. The recipes are ace!

@mogrim Paneer is dead easy to make at home. Heat up a pan of milk, chuck in a drop of lemon juice until it seperates then strain it through a clean tea towel, wrap the solids in the towel and press under a heavy pan or something until set then chuck it in the fridge for a bit. Google for the exact heat and lemon juice quantity as I can't remember.

Cheers @Jordan, I'd heard it was easy to make but never got round to it. Slightly worried about cucking my cheese, though 🙂

Hmm, quick edit, not so worried now...

(can’t get paneer here)

It's pretty easy to make, but takes a day (or more)  in the fridge to reach the cubing consistency of bought stuff.  There are plenty of recipes where you can simply crumble fresh paneer into your dish, often the simpler the better. A Saag Paneer or a simple peas paneer massala (fresh or frozen peas in a simple massala with paneer crumbled into it is a fantastic side or starter.

To make paneer you need a big pan, a couple of litres of whole milk and a tablespoon or two of lemon juice. Bing the milk to the boil in a big pan, switch off the heat and let it stand for a minute. Stir in the lemon juice and watch it curdle. Stir it as it does and you'll see the solids separate from the whey.  Strain off the whey (keep it for drinks or cooking juices where you'd usually use stock) and then scoop the solids into a muslin cloth.  Squeeze as much of the remaining liquid out as you can and let it hang over a bowl for an hour to make sure it's as dry as you can get it.

Next, keep it in the muslin and press the solids into a dish or tupperware box in the fridge and weight it to compress it, at least a couple of hours if you're going to crumble it, or overnight/longer if you want to cube it.

Edit, beaten to it by my own verbosity......

A family favourite and the only curry that junior wants me to batch cook and deliver when we visit him at Uni.

https://www.pickuplimes.com/recipe/roasted-cauliflower-lentil-curry-190

Apologies if already posted but this one is a good go to;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/sweet_potato_and_08653

Just having it right now but as I had enough curry sauce left to freeze, its pretty much a one dish tray bake.  Will batch cook a load of the sauce next time

As a red in tooth and claw fleshatarian, veggie curries are awesome. I'd go cauliflower and paneer but not in the same dish, cauliflower in a dhal, and saag paneer,  mega hot tandoori potatoes too. Peshwari naan to accompany.

P.s. definitely going to have a go at making my own paneer having read the above too

The trick to vegetarian curry is not to just make a curry, but to make a couple plus sides. I rarely follow a recipe these days, but this book has a great explanation of how the different spices and flavours work together.

You really want a decent Asian supermarket so you can get all the unusual items. If you can get dried or frozen methi, it will make almost any curry taste more like the real thing but it’s especially great with spinach.

Here’s a couple of recipes for sides. The carrot and peas one looks not dissimilar to having tipped a bag of mixed veg out the freezer, and the koshumbir is basically grated carrot with flavour added.

Bonus of finding a decent Asian supermarket is you’ll also get all the interesting flat breads and samosas. Paratha are delicious and filling, khakhara not so filling but still tasty and an interesting alternative to papadam.

If you’re still not inspired, I’d recommend seeking out a Gujurati restaurant. A world away from meat in sauce!

Bonus of finding a decent Asian supermarket is you’ll also get...

There's one near me. Aside from bulk-buying authentic spices for no money, it's a fantastic place to go for pans if you're planning on batch-cooking. I have the old pans that I inherited from my grandparents' farm which aren't small, they sell stuff that makes my biggest one look like a milk pan.

1 chopped Onion, sweat in pan

Then add chopped , garlic & ginger

1 Tbsp tumeric powder1, /2 Tbsp cumin powder, tsp coriander powder

1 large chopped sweet Potato in 2 cm cubes

1 can coconut milk or creamed coconut powder? water cook for 10mins

1 tin chickpeas , cook another 10mins

Add big bunch roughly chopped spinach cook for a few mins more

Serve with lots of chopped coriander and naan bread

The Leon Lentil Masala is a favourite.  Easy to cook and not challenging to eat! 🙂

Edit: the only slightly weird ingredient is apple cider vinegar.  I've always used white wine vinegar instead.  And spinach rather than kale.